“These bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers,
the descendants of apes and pigs,” Mr. Morsi declared, using a slur for
Jews that is familiar across the Muslim world. Although he referred
repeatedly to “Zionists” and never explicitly to Jews, Mr. Morsi echoed
historic anti-Semitic themes: “They have been fanning the flames of
civil strife wherever they were throughout their history. They are
hostile by nature.”
Some analysts said the gap between Mr. Morsi’s caustic statements as a
Brotherhood leader and his more pragmatic actions as president
illustrated the many factors besides ideology that shape political
decisions. “What you believe in your heart is not the same as what you
do in power,” said Shadi Hamid, research director of the Brookings Doha
Center. Whatever Mr. Morsi’s opinions about Jews, he has left Egypt’s
foreign policy toward Israel largely unchanged, Mr. Hamid said.
Mr. Morsi’s past statements may still raise questions about how he would
act in the future if Egypt were not constrained by its financial
dependence, relative military weakness and a network of Western
alliances. But in contemporary Egyptian politics the gap between his
past vitriol and his present comity may serve mainly as a tempting
target for his opponents, Mr. Hamid said.

Though it's good that Kirkpatrick acknowledges that without explicitly
mentioning Jews that Morsi's statement from three years ago "echoed
historic anti-Semitic themes," Kirkpatrick still refers to analysts who
insist that Morsi is "pragmatic."

Q. I have seen reports of virulent anti-Semitism and
anti-Israel hate speech at rallies of presidential candidates. Could you
please let us know about these activities which appear to be highly
disturbing.
A. A concerned citizen in New York asks about campaign rally
rhetoric about Israel and possible anti-Semitism. I have not seen or
heard any slurs against Jews on the campaign trail, and I do not think
that has figured in the campaign in any way. Israel is a more
complicated issue. All the leading candidates have pledged to respect
Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. But Egyptians — secular and liberal or
Islamist — are deeply hostile to Israel. The overwhelming feeling here
is that Israel has failed to live up to its end of the Camp David
accords leading to the peace treaty because it has not recognized a
Palestinian state and instead allows settlements to continue on
territory envisioned as part of that state. An episode last summer fired
up the hard feelings anew because Israeli war planes killed a handful
of Egyptian security officers inside the border when Israel was pursuing
some suspected terrorists; Israeli officials initially refused to
apologize and Egyptians stormed the Israeli embassy. But eventually
Israel apologized, pledged an investigation and the situation calmed
down.So most candidates have sought to balance their commitments
to the peace (which is popular) and some criticism of Israel (which most
here consider an enemy.)It may be interesting to note which candidates are most hostile to
Israel. Not the Islamists. Mohamed Morsi and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh
are relatively positive about the importance of the peace. By far the
most hostile to Israel and even the treaty is Hamdeen Sabahi, a
Nasserite socialist with support from Egypt’s secular-liberal and
cultural elite.

In short, Kirkpatrick's response was that Egyptians are anti-Israel -
and he explains why that hatred is understandable - but not antisemitic.
He further explained that the Muslim Brotherhood isn't even the most
anti-Israel party in Egypt.

In another question and answer session a few months later, Kirkpatrick responded to a question about Sayyid Qutb:

Q. I wish you had asked the following questions:
1. What is Morsi’s opinion of [Sayyid] Qutb’s writings and their role in
defining the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Does he reject Qutb’s
assessment of the inherent conflict between the Muslim world and the
cosmopolitan West or does he accept them?
2. Hamas in the Gaza Strip is an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Would Morsi criticize any moves Hamas has taken since gaining control of
Gaza, such as harassing Western nongovernmental aid organizations, and
even some Christian congregations?
3. Morsi attended graduate school in the United States for his Ph.D. in
materials science, and yet has endorsed the 9/11 deniers’ belief that
the World Trade Center towers collapse was due to explosives planted by
parties other than the Al Qaeda terrorists. Indeed, Morsi has expressed
skepticism that amateur pilots could have flown the planes into the
towers. Does Morsi still believe this?
4. In his years in the U.S., Morsi undoubtedly was exposed to the First
Amendment and the importance of free speech to Americans. Yet after the
Cairo embassy attack, Morsi’s first reaction was to call for the
American government to place the filmmakers of the “Innocence of
Muslims” on trial. Why did Morsi demand this, and did he expect the U.S.
government to comply? Thanks. — Philippe Byrnes | AlbuquerqueA.I see you are following Egypt closely! And these are also questions that come up often.
Sayyid Qutb was a historically significant and widely influential
midcentury Islamist thinker. And he was a part of the Brotherhood during
the revolution that brought Gamal Abdel Nasser to power. But he is now
best remembered for his most radical and militant ideas. Those ideas
were always controversial within the Brotherhood, whose founder, Hassan
el-Banna, emphasized inclusiveness. And the Brotherhood has disavowed
militancy or violence since at least Nasser’s revolution in 1952.
But I find Qutb often looms larger in the West these days than he does
in Egypt or the Middle East, because his later ideas became the
foundation of a different, far more militant and antidemocratic strain
of Islamist thinking that led to Al Qaeda. The Muslim Brotherhood has
never endorsed terrorism or Al Qaeda. And when Al Qaeda took
responsibility for the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Morsi —
then a leader of the Brotherhood’s political arm and its parliamentary
minority — was quick to denounce it.
We tried briefly to ask Mr. Morsi about Hamas’s rule in Gaza, and, in a
polite way, he told us it was a silly comparison. Egypt is a giant and
far more diverse. It has an established Christian minority whose rights
are at least written into the law, and it has a relatively strong
tradition of respecting the rule of law, compared to some of its
neighbors. But I regret that we did not get a chance to ask him exactly
your question.
We did not ask Mr. Morsi about 9/11, but, despite his engineering degree
in materials science, his aides tell me he does indeed question the
official United States government account of what happened to the
buildings.
I know that a lot of Egyptians question the official story but at the
same time think the attacks were a horrendous crime. I suspect part of
the explanation is that many Egyptians, probably including Mr. Morsi,
deeply distrust the United States for some of the reasons that he tried
to articulate. And I think another part of the explanation is that
Egyptians have been lied to by their own government and its official
media for at least 60 years (and the privately owned media is not so
accurate either). I sometimes have to explain to Egyptians that The New
York Times is not owned or controlled by the United States government.
Mr. Morsi’s first response to the attack on the United States Embassy
here did condemn the violence. It is not true that he first called for
legal actions against the makers of the video mocking the prophet.
But his reaction was more than a day late. The Muslim Brotherhood, which
is allied with Mr. Morsi, had called for a nonviolent protest against
the film in advance of the day the protest took place, and afterward it
continued to call for criminalizing such films. And when Mr. Morsi and
the Brotherhood both condemned the violence, their statements were mixed
with criticism of the video. Many Egyptians seem to believe that it is
possible to criminalize grave insults to established religions without
intruding too much on freedom of expression — an idea utterly alien to
the United States’ legal tradition. — David Kirkpatrick

Here Kirkpatrick clearly tried to draw the line between the Muslim
Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, with the former being moderate or, at least,
pragmatic. He does his best to defuse the questions rather than answer
them. Despite presenting an equivocal image of Morsi after the fact, his
reporting this week showed a willingness to acknowledge that the Muslim
Brotherhood may not, in fact, be so moderate.

That kind of pure bigotry is unacceptable anywhere, anytime. But it
is even more offensive in public discourse, coming from someone who
became the president of a major country. Mr. Morsi’s comments deserve to
be condemned unequivocally, as the Obama administration did on Tuesday.
Jay Carney, the president’s spokesman, said, “We completely reject
these statements.”
The problem goes deeper than just Mr. Morsi, however. The remarks were
made at a time when anti-Israel sentiment was running high in Egypt and
the region after the three-week Gaza conflict in 2009 between Israel and
Hamas. The sad truth is that defaming Jews is an all too standard
feature of Egyptian, and Arab, discourse; Israelis are not immune to
responding in kind either.
...
Does Mr. Morsi really believe what he said in 2010? Has becoming
president made him think differently about the need to respect and work
with all people? So far, there has been no official reaction.

First of all the reference to Israeli is gratuitous. There is no
comparison between the mainstream antisemitism in Egypt or most Muslim
societies and the fringe expressions of hatred in Israel. The
condemnation of Morsi is welcome, but while decrying Morsi's comments as
"an all too standard feature of Egyptian, and Arab, discourse," when
the Times has covered the issue in its news section, it has been given
to equivocation. In late 2011, Isabel Kershner wrote about Itamar Marcus's book on Palestinian incitement.

In one of the most egregious examples of Palestinian doublespeak,
Yasir Arafat spoke in a mosque in South Africa in May 1994, only months
after the signing of the Oslo accords, and called on the worshipers “to
come and to fight and to start the jihad to liberate Jerusalem.”
As the ambassador to Washington at the time, Mr. Rabinovich said he
found himself in the awkward position of having to explain to anyone who
would listen that jihad, usually translated as holy war, could also
mean a spiritual struggle, in order to justify continuing the peace
process.
Still, he said, it is not by chance that those focusing on Palestinian
incitement and publicizing it are “rightist groups who use it as
ammunition.”

Instead of treating incitement as a major issue, Kershner used the
quote from Ambassador Rabinovich to make it sound as if the issue is
partisan in nature.

And therefore he's not an anti-Semite? 'Go convince Hamas to stop shooting rockets at Israel for a while and we'll give you 20 F-16 fighter jets that are better than any of the ones you have' makes Morsy not an anti-Semite?

Mr. Morsi’s office protests that it is not responsible for these
investigations; it points out that the charges against Mr. Yousef, as
well as some other journalists, were initiated by private lawyers, who
are allowed to lodge complaints with prosecutors. But several of the
cases originated with complaints from the president’s office. And the
government has not hesitated to impose its agenda on state-run media,
installing its own editors and yanking unsympathetic news hosts off the
air.
It has also tolerated — at least — a climate of intimidation. The
offices of several independent television channels were besieged for
weeks by supporters of a popular cleric. During demonstrations against
Mr. Morsi’s government, his Muslim Brotherhood supporters took to the
streets and were accused of targeting journalists; one was killed by a
rubber bullet.
While calling for preservation of democratic freedoms in Egypt, the
Obama administration has been slow to take note of or respond to the
attacks on journalists. Officials say they are feeling their way with
Mr. Morsi’s government, trying to preserve cooperation on matters such
as counterterrorism. Yet the United States retains considerable leverage
over Egypt, including its influence over a pending International
Monetary Fund loan the government badly needs. That sway should be aimed
at preserving space for free media and a democratic opposition — which,
in Cairo, is not just a liberal good but a vital U.S. interest.

This is much stronger than the New York Times editorial, which simply
called on President Obama to give President Morsi a good talking to. The
United States does have leverage, and the Post is correct to suggest
that the American government should use it. This is why Morsi has been
pragmatic so far. But if he knows that there are no consequences to his
increasing authoritarianism, he certainly will not liberalize.

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About Me

I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-three years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 11 to 31 years and seven grandchildren. Three of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com